Monday, April 30, 2012
A vision for all — perhaps not meant for one man alone
"I was most jealous of Truffaut — in a friendly way — with Jules and Jim. I said, 'It's so good! How I wish I'd made it.' Certain scenes had me dying of jealousy. I said, 'I should've done that, not him.'" — Jean Renoir
By Edward Copeland
From the first time I saw Jules and Jim in high school, the movie became a personal touchstone and remains one as we mark its 50th anniversary. Truthfully, I know the parallels my teen eyes recognized between myself and others in my life then didn't mirror the characters on screen as closely as my imagination wanted to believe, but as that fantasy faded away, I began to appreciate more of the artistry of a film that I already loved. In addition to what Jules and Jim contains within its frames, the movie also forged the connection I've always felt with François Truffaut.
If you discovered, probably early in your life, that your genetic makeup left you susceptible to artistic impulses of some kind — it needn't matter whether that creative bent took the form of movies, writing, art, music, whatever — the odds weighed heavily toward you falling for at least one Catherine in your lifetime. (Now, I'm speaking from the point-of-view of a straight male. I wouldn't dare presume straight female or gay perspectives, though I've witnessed similar dynamics secondhand.) As far as we go, the Catherines of the real world function like those purple-hued bug zappers hanging on summer porches and inevitably drawing us like moths to their pulsating light and our doom — and we wouldn't trade one goddamn miserable minute of it if it meant losing a single second of the joy. This isn't a new phenomenon:
F. Scott had his Zelda and Tom had his Viv during the same era when Jules and Jim takes place. (A brief aside: I think Tom sent me a personal message from the past when he published The Waste Land in 1922 and penned those lines, "April is the cruellest month.") To casual and outside observers, proclaiming that Catherine must be crazy comes rather easily and mounting a counterargument against that assumption makes for a steep climb. Yes, our real world Catherines come with a fair amount of mental instability, as do we, but without our neuroses and idiosyncrasies, we probably wouldn't be drawn to these wild, wonderful, wounding women in the first place. Of course, Henri-Pierre Roché's novel and François Truffaut's film take the men's point-of-view, even when filtered through Michel Sobor's narration, so Jules and Jim aren't portrayed as being as unstable as Catherine. The closest the male friends come shows through Jules' fear and neediness at times. As for the Catherines of the real world, people do have the capacity for change, no matter what David Chase might believe, and can end up being vital parts of your life even as you become the one holding the monopoly on the madness in the friendship. It's a cliché, but it originates from truth: Most of the best art stems from suffering. Anyone remember Billy Joel during the years when he and Christie Brinkley were happily married? Jules and Jim, for me at least, represents a cinematic temple to that idea. Of course, it also begs the question that if misery breeds great art, why in the hell haven't I accomplished something of note? Jules and Jim made its U.S. premiere April 23, 1962, the same year the film made its initial debut in France on Jan. 23. Though it marked Truffaut's third feature film as a director following The 400 Blows and Shoot the Piano Player, Jules and Jim was only the second of his films to reach U.S. movie theaters. Shoot the Piano Player, though it opened elsewhere in 1960, wouldn't get its U.S. release until July 23, 1962. (Like Jules and Jim, The 400 Blows reached U.S. shores in the same year, 1959, that Truffaut's directing
debut did elsewhere, just a few months later.) As I remind people as often as possible, all opinions about movies are subjective. Before beginning my lovesick tribute to what I think holds the title as the true masterpiece born of the French New Wave, I feel that I shouldn't pretend all critics agreed about Jules and Jim and I'd allow one to have his say before I got started. "With the years, I've sometimes felt the reputation of Jules and Jim is a bit exaggerated," this former critic said to Richard Roud, then-director of the New York Film Festival, in October 1977 on a television program called Camera Three. The ex-critic added, "and that I was too young when I made it." That appearance happened to be François Truffaut's first time on American television. I guess you can remove the man from the role of film critic but you can't take the critic out of the man. "I continue to re-read the book every year. It was one of my favorites. I've often felt that the film was too decorative, not cruel enough, that love was crueler that that," Truffaut went on to tell Roud. Now, François, don't be so hard on yourself. For those who haven't seen Jules and Jim, I'll be vague, I think you could call the film's dénouement fairly devastating. Besides, most recognize (or know from experience) that cruelty usually crosses love's path at some point. On top of that, the subject cuts too close to Truffaut for him to judge. Jules and Jim may speak to me in personal ways, but that isn't why the film rests among my 20 favorite films of all time. As John Houseman used to claim in TV commercials about how Smith Barney made money, Jules and Jim got that rank on my list "the old-fashioned way. It earned it."While I knew that Jules and Jim originated as a novel by Henri-Pierre Roché, it wasn't until I obtained the Criterion edition that I learned that Roché loosely based it on his relationship with Franz Hessel, a German writer who translated Proust into German (as Jim does in the film) and Helen Grund, who became Hessel's wife and herself translated Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita into German. Legend has it that Roché also introduced Gertrude Stein to Pablo Picasso through his original career as an art dealer and art collector. Though the circles that Roché circulated in preceded the time period of Woody Allen's recent Midnight in Paris, he did know many of the literary and artistic figures depicted in Allen's fantasy. The real-life coincidences that brought Truffaut and Roché together border on the extraordinary. Truffaut
stumbled upon the novel in a secondhand bookstore and it led to a letter-writing relationship between himself and Roché where the young critic Truffaut promised that if he ever made movies, he would bring Jules and Jim to the screen. Jules and Jim was the first novel that Roché ever wrote — which he did at the age of 74. His second novel, also autobiographical, Two English Girls and the Continent, eventually became the source material of a later Truffaut film, Two English Girls. Two English Girls, sort of the inverse of Jules and Jim with two women pining for the same man, marks its 40th anniversary this year but unfortunately, like too many other great films I'd like to write about this year, no proper DVD copy has been made for rental or at a reasonable price, the same situation that in the past two years has befallen other films such as Steven Soderbergh's Kafka, Barbet Schroeder's Barfly with its great performances by Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway and two of John Sayles' very best films — City of Hope and Matewan. Who said only old classics become lost films? With the constant format changes, some never made the leap from pan-and-scanned VHS. A true travesty, but I've digressed from the subject at hand. Roché didn't live long enough to see the movie of his first novel, but the film version brought best-seller status to his book that it never saw in his lifetime. One aspect that didn't occur to me until I re-watched the movie for this tribute: Not only has the film reached its 50th anniversary this year, 2012 also means a full century has passed from where its story begins in 1912.
The film starts in blackness — literally if you were in a French-speaking country or watching without subtitles. You hear a voice (Jeanne Moreau's as Catherine, though we wouldn't know that yet) say, "You said, 'I love you.' I said, 'Wait.' I was about to say, 'Take me.' You said, 'Go.'" Then, quite abruptly, Truffaut launches us into the film's imagery with a bouncy spirit, playing music beneath the credits that seems to herald that a carnival lies ahead courtesy of prolific film composer Georges Delerue, who scores the entire film, though it won't all sound like this energetic romp which accompanies clips, some of scenes that will arrive later in the film, others that just fit the tone of the piece — such as Jules and Jim jokingly fencing with brooms. As with many others, Delerue would collaborate with Truffaut on nearly all of his films, having first worked on Shoot the Piano Player. We'll also get a glimpse of an hourglass, its sand pouring through to clue us in advance of the importance the passage of time serves in the story. We see our first swift sightings of Moreau as Catherine, though her actual entrance
into the film doesn't occur immediately. While Catherine certainly acts as the catalyst for most events in Jules and Jim, her name isn't in the title for a reason. At its heart, Jules and Jim spins a story of friendship between two men. Oskar Werner's Jules acts as the outsider, the Austrian in Paris, until Henri Serre's Jim takes him beneath his wing, acting, quite literally, in the early days of their acquaintance as Jules' wingman. As with many Truffaut films, Jules and Jim employs a narrator (Michel Subor) not only to for exposition purposes but because Truffaut wanted to maintain as much of Roché's prose as possible in the adaptation he co-wrote with Jean Gruault. Jules and Jim's friendship begins when Jules, the foreigner in Paris, approaches Jim blindly to see if the Frenchman might wrangle him an invitation to the Quatres Arts Ball. Jim succeeds and a friendship blossoms as they search for a slave costume for Jules to wear to the event. From that, the men began to teach one another the other's language and culture and shared their poems,
which they'd translate into the other's native tongue. Before long, the men saw each other every day, talking endlessly, finding common ground such as, the narrator informs us, "a relative indifference toward money." The omniscient voice also tells the viewer, "They chatted easily. Neither had ever had such an attentive listener." Jules though lacks luck when it comes to love in Paris, even of the transitory kind while Jim draws women to him as if he were a magnet. Jim finds getting women so easy that he willingly hands some off to Jules, including a musician. "They were in love for about a week." This early setup runs us through the women, most of whom bear little importance to the story so they receive scant attention from the film. Desperate for some amorous action, Jules even ignores Jim's warning to stay away from the "professionals" only to learn that he should have trusted Jim's word and avoided the disappointment. This changes one evening, when the men encounter a woman named Thérèse (Marie Dubois) seeking refuge from her loutish anarchist boyfriend who blames her for a shortage of paint that he thinks will make people believe that anarchists don't know how to spell.
What separates Jules' and Jim's relationship with Thérèse from what lies ahead with Catherine comes from Thérèse clearly indicating a preference between the two men, in this case Jules. Though Dubois' role takes up very little screen time, she does prove a charmer (and remember that U.S. moviegoers, at the time of Jules and Jim's release, had yet to see her film debut as the waitress Lena in love with Charles Aznavour's piano-playing Charlie in Truffaut's second feature, Shoot the Piano Player). When they return to the house,
Jules acts the part of the gentleman, offering Thérèse his bed while he sleeps in a rocking chair, but romance occurs quickly and rectifies that situation. That hourglass first spotted in the opening credits reappears and Jules explains that he prefers it to a clock. When all the sand passes through to the bottom, that means it's time to go to sleep, he explains. She simply smiles and tells him he's sweet. Thérèse demonstrates for Jules her trick that she calls "the steam engine." She places a lit cigarette in her mouth and puffs out her cheeks like a blowfish and then chugs in a circle in the bedroom until she has reached Jules' chair, one of the many, recurrent visuals of circular imagery that Truffaut utilizes in the film. You shouldn't feel bad for Jim — he's busy bedding his frequent lover Gilberte (Vanna Urbino) and making excuses to depart her bed before the sun rises despite her request to lie beside her for a complete night for a change. Jim nixes that idea, saying that if they did that they might as well be married and she'd expect him to stay the next night as well. Gilberte expresses skepticism at his excuse, especially when he suggests that she imagine he's working at a factory, betting that his plan involves sleeping until noon. Later that night, Jules, Jim and Thérèse go to a café and no sooner have they sat down that after making eyes at another
man, Thérèse asks Jules for some change to play music. He complies, she takes the money and the man follows her. Thérèse asks if she can stay with him that night and the two depart. Jules starts to stand in outrage, but Jim grabs his arm and he sits back down. "Lose one, find 10 more," Jim advises. Jules admits that he didn't love Thérèse. "She was both mother and doting daughter at the same time," Jules says, sighing that he doesn't have luck with Parisian women. He shows Jim photos of some of the women back home he loves, presenting them in order of preference and contemplating returning for one of them in a couple of months if the situation in France doesn't change. However, Jules lacks a photograph of one named Helga so he sketches her in broad strokes on the café's table. Jim tries to buy the table, but the establishment's owner refuses unless he purchases the entire set.
That night, they go to the home of Jules' friend Albert (played by Serge Rezvani, a renaissance artist, though he prefers the term multidisciplinarian, who billed himself as Bassiak here and added the first name Boris when taking credit as the composer of "Le Tourbillon" that Moreau memorably sings) to see his slides of ancient sculptures he found around the country. (Somehow it slips my mind between viewings of Jules and Jim how little dialogue the actors actually get to speak openly in the film in favor of voiceover. For example, when Jules and Jim enter Albert's place, they exchange introductions out loud but then Henri Serre as Jim doesn't simply ask Oskar Werner's Jules, "Who's Albert?" Instead, we hear Michel Subor's narrator say, "Jim asked" — When I first heard
this the first few times I watched the film, it sounded as if Subor narrated this entire dialogue. After hearing it for the umpteenth time, it sounds as if Subor merely starts it the Serre asks in voiceover, "Who's Albert?" with Werner's voice replying, "A friend to artists and sculptors. He knows everyone who'll be famous in 10 years." I can't say with 100% certainty which interpretation stands as the correct answer. I've looked for verification, but found none. Jules' response tipped me in that direction because Werner's voice can be distinguished easily from Subor's while Serre's falls in the same vocal range.) One slide of a stone face particularly strikes the friends' fancy — and Subor definitely
describes this, informing the viewer, "The tranquil smile of the crudely sculpted face mesmerized them. The statue was in an outdoor museum on an Adriatic island. They set out immediately to see it. They both had the same white suit made. They spent an hour by the statue. It exceeded their expectations. They walked rapidly around it in silence. They didn't speak of it until the next day. Had they ever met such a smile? Never. And if they ever did, they'd follow it. Jules and Jim returned home, full of this revelation. Paris took them gently back in." Later, Jules and Jim hit the gym where they spar with some kickboxing. Jules inquires about the progress of Jim's book. Jim tells him he thinks it's going well and will turn out to be very autobiographical and concern their friendship. He proceeds to read Jules a passage. "Jacques and Julien were inseparable. Julien's last novel had been a success. He had described, as if in a fairy tale, the women he had known before he met Jacques or even Lucienne. Jacques was proud for Jules' sake. People called them Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and rumors circulated behind their
backs about their unusual friendship. They ate together in small restaurants, and each splurged on the best cigars to give the other." Jules finds the writing beautiful and offers to translate it to German. Jim's brief allusion in his novel to "rumors" about his friendship with Jules marks the closest the film ever comes to implying anything homoerotic between the men. While Jules and Jim opened the door for many cinematic variations on your standard triangle, we'd still need almost 40 years before Y Tu Mama Tambien. As the guys shower, Jules announces that his cousin wrote him and three girls that studied with him in Munich would be visiting Paris — one from Berlin, one from Holland and one from there in France, Jules plans to host a dinner for the visitors the next night. Neither friend has any idea who Catherine happens to be yet or that she will be the French girl in that group of visitors. This Quixote and Sancho soon will be tilting at a very shapely and unpredictable windmill that will change the course of all three lives forever. The next night, when Catherine (Moreau) descends the stairs and lifts the lace netting covering her face, her resemblance to the sculpture stuns Jules and Jim, something Truffaut emphasizes through quick cuts, and Michel Subor's narration, and the young men will keep the oath they made to that statue — they've found that smile, now they must follow it. While for me, Jules and Jim stands at the high watermark of the French New Wave films, I know many others won't agree and when you look objectively at the story of Jules and Jim, it may employ many of that movement's techniques but many aspects of Truffaut's film set it apart from its cinematic brethren such as its period setting and a time span that covers more than two decades. Jules and Jim also caused moral uproars about the open relationships among the various characters in the film (and though Jules, Jim and Catherine might be involved simultaneously, they never took part in a ménage à trois). In a funny way, the 1962 film forecast the free love movement to come later that decade except its source material happened to be a semiautobiographical novel set in the early part of the 20th century. The prurience though lies in the mind of the fuddy duddy because part of what makes Jules and Jim so special comes from Truffaut's refusal to pass any judgment, be it positive or negative, upon the behavior of his characters. Despite the director's own criticism many years down the road that the film isn't cruel enough when it comes to love, the three main characters do suffer by the end but he doesn't paint it as punishment for their sins.
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Labels: 60s, Books, Criticism, Dunaway, Fiction, Fitzgerald, Foreign, Mickey Rourke, Movie Tributes, Ray Top 100, Renoir, Sayles, Soderbergh, Truffaut, Woody
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Tuesday, March 06, 2012
How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise
By Edward Copeland
When contemplating possible headlines for my 25th anniversary tribute to Alan Parker's thriller Angel Heart, I almost considered using the words SPOILER ALERT. The 1987 movie is one of the first films released in my moviegoing lifetime in which an essential part of its appeal comes from the plot twist revealed near the end, though I had guessed it earlier in the film and the gimmick doesn't distract from the solid atmospherics, the great lead performance by Mickey Rourke and several supporting performances including one credited as "Special Appearance by Robert De Niro." If by chance you have not seen Angel Heart, move along now because it's difficult to discuss without giving away its secrets, even 25 years later. Some other titles containing twists might come up as well. It reminds me of a very early post on this blog about twists in films. You have been warned. It also makes me recall my dream that when any friends become new parents I beg them to keep all knowledge about Psycho away from the child until they see it since by the time I saw it, I knew what was coming. Then again, in the original 1960 trailer, Alfred Hitchcock points out the shower and the top of the steps, shows Janet Leigh screaming and suggests something's wrong with Anthony Perkins' character, so Hitch didn't try to hide it much himself.
Though Alan Parker's filmography always glowed eclectically, 1987's Angel Heart marked yet another turn in the British director's career as he helmed his first unabashed mystery thriller — and one with supernatural and voodoo undercurrents at that. In an introduction recorded for the 2004 special edition DVD, Parker discussed watching Angel Heart for the first time in many years. "It's strange seeing it at a distance because you kinda see it for the first time," Parker said. "Actually, seeing it again, I'm very proud of it. I think it holds up."
I found myself much in the same position as Parker when I revisited Angel Heart for this anniversary tribute, though the film left such an impression on me when I originally saw it in 1987 and a few more times in years soon after that it surprised me how well its specifics had stayed with me, thanks to the craftsmanship, the
screenplay (which Parker also wrote, adapting it from the novel Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg) and the acting. Parker admits changing the novel quite a bit. While the novel took its setting exclusively certain parts of New York, primarily Brooklyn, Parker expanded it to Harlem and added the New Orleans element entirely. Parker also created characters, dialogue and shifted the time period backward from 1959 to 1955 because he wished to keep it further away from the 1960s and closer to the 1940s as a period piece. What, perhaps, startled me the most — seeing how young Mickey Rourke looked back when he was at the peak of his powers, though from a 2004 interview with Rourke on the DVD, you wouldn't get that. Rourke says he was close to losing his house when Angel Heart came his way and had been weighing quitting acting. The chance to work with Alan Parker attracted Rourke to Angel Heart more than the film itself. Thankfully, Rourke made his comeback after his flirtation with boxing, first in Sin City and then in The Wrestler (don't know if I should count Iron Man 2 or not), but I wonder how many great roles we lost while he was lost.
Of course, Angel Heart also includes that great supporting performance by Robert De Niro that reminds you of the days when he seemed to take parts for more than just a paycheck. In an interview on the DVD, Parker says he originally sought De Niro to play Harry Angel (Rourke's role), but De Niro expressed more interest in the Louis Cyphre role. Parker had been chasing Jack Nicholson for Cyphre, but Jack got to be devilish in a different 1987 film, as Darryl Van Horne in the in-title only adaptation of John Updike's The Witches of Eastwick. The process of nabbing De Niro, according to Parker, was an arduous game of back-and-forth until one day De Niro finally phoned and told Parker, "I'm of a mind to do the film." I gave you the spoiler warning up top, so, as the song goes, I hope you guessed De Niro's character's name and since he's a punny devil — Louis Cyphre…Lou-Cyphre…Lucifer. As Cyphre explains, "Mephistopheles is such a mouthful in Manhattan." Also like the lyrics of The Rolling Stones' classic, De Niro portrays Cyphre as a man of wealth and taste, well-dressed with frighteningly long fingernails, always playing with his cane. Many sources claim that De Niro's performance actually is a wicked impersonation of Martin Scorsese. Physically, he might resemble how Scorsese looks at times but that certainly isn't Marty's vocal style. De Niro's Angel Heart character speaks too deliberately without a shred of accent and never sounds as if he's on fast-forward as Scorsese does. I've said this many times about great actors and probably about De Niro, but his excellence extends to masterful manipulation of props. In Angel Heart, De Niro displays it with the cane and, later, with an egg. Like Rourke, 1987 gave moviegoers two memorable De Niro turns. He also preached "teamwork" as Al Capone in Brian De Palma's The Untouchables.
Angel Heart opens by getting the audience in a properly creepy mood opening on a dark street where a dog barks wildly on the pavement while way above the canine a cat hisses on a fire escape. At the bottom of the fire escape, where the pooch continues to make noise lays the violently slain body of a woman. Honestly, the movie never gets back around to telling us who she was or how she relates to rest of the story but the tableau combines with Trevor Jones' slightly sinister score and the proper look provided by d.p. Michael Seresin, who served as cinematographer on many Parker films including Midnight Express, Fame and Birdy. Seresin's work goes far in creating Angel Heart's atmosphere and accomplishing Parker's stated goal of making "a black-and-white film in color." After that opening, we appear to be on the same street, knowing now that it's Brooklyn 1955 as Mickey Rourke pops a bubble and then lights a cigarette as a faceless voice greets him as "Harry." Soon, he's sitting behind his desk in his disheveled office when he gets a phone call. "Harold Angel. Middle initial R. Just like in the phone book," he answers. "Of course I know what an attorney is. It's like a lawyer only their bills are higher," he tells the person on the phone. He scrounges for pen and paper, passing a gun in his desk drawer, and scrawls Winesap and McIntosh. Harry then adds Louis Cyphre and sets up a meeting, a bit out of his usual stomping grounds in Harlem, but Angel pledges to be there.
The best running gag in Angel Heart, since the film never tries too hard to conceal Louis Cyphre's true identity, has half of his meetings with Harry Angel taking place in churches — and Cyphre gets on the private detective when he uses unsavory language.
Their first meeting takes place at a Harlem church. Harry climbs to the church's second level where he meets Herman Winesap (Dann Florek, who we now know best as Captain Kragen on the original Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU but always will be L.A. Law 's Dave Meyer to me). As Winesap prepares to take Harry to meet Cyphre, Angel notices a shrouded woman furiously scrubbing blood off the wall of a room. "An unfortunate husband of one of Pastor John's flock took a gun to his head," Winesap explains. "Most unpleasant." When Winesap opens the door to another room, we see
that hand and those long fingernails playing with the handle of his cane before we see Louis Cyphre himself. Though De Niro makes no attempt at any sort of accent, he's introduced as "Monsieur Louis Cyphre." Without getting up, he shakes Harry's hand. In fact, Cyphre never stands in the entire film. He asks to see Angel's identification. "Nothing personal. I'm a little overcautious," Cyphre admits. De Niro's performance displays such control that it really makes me nostalgic for that De Niro. Harry asks how they came up with his name, assuming it was the phone book since most of his clients pick him since his last name starts with an A and they are lazy. As Harry spins his theory, Cyphre silently and definitely shakes his head no. That's a gesture most humans could make, but the De Niro of that time conveys so much with that small motion. He and Winesap then explain the case they want Angel to take. "Do you by chance remember the name Johnny Favorite?" Cyphre inquires.
The name Johnny Favorite doesn't ring a bell with Harry Angel, but Cyphre explains that Favorite was a crooner prior to the war. "Quite famous in his way," Louis adds. "I usually don't get involved in anything very heavy. I usually handle insurance jobs, divorces, things of that nature. If I'm lucky sometimes I handle people, but I don't know no crooners or anybody famous," Harry tells the mysterious Cyphre and his attorney. They inform the detective that Favorite’s real last name was Liebling, but Harry doesn’t know that name either. He asks the pair if this Johnny owes them money and that’s why they’re looking for him. “Not quite. I helped Johnny at the beginning of his career,” Cyphre says, leading Angel to ask if he was the singer’s agent. “No! Nothing so…,” the bearded man semi-smiles, not bothering to complete his thought. “Monsieur Cyphre has a contract. Certain collateral was to be forfeited in the event of his death,” Winesap steps in to explain. That takes Harry back a bit. “You're talking about a guy that's dead?” he asks. Cyphre and Winesap go on to tell Angel the story of how they lost track of Johnny Favorite. In 1943, the entertainer was drafted to aid the U.S. war effort in North Africa as part of the special entertainment services. Soon after his arrival, an attack severely disfigured Favorite, both physically and mentally. “Amnesia. I think you call it,” Cyphre tells Harry, who tosses out, “Shell shock.” Cyphre concurs with Angel’s description and his interest gets piqued when the private eye admits to knowing how that condition feels. He asks Harry if he was in the military. ‘I was in for a short time, but I got a little fucked up, excuse my language. They shipped me home, and I missed the whole shebang — the war, the medals, everything. I guess you could say I was lucky,” Harry declares. Louis continues Johnny Favorite’s story, telling Harry that Johnny wasn’t lucky. “He returned home a zombie. His friends had him transferred to a private hospital upstate. There was some sort of radical psychiatric treatment involved. His lawyers had the power of attorney to pay the bills, things like that, but you know how it is. He remained a vegetable, and my contract was never honored…I don't want to sound mercenary. My only interest in Johnny is in finding out if he's alive or dead,” Cyphre insists. “Each year, my office receives a signed affidavit confirming that Johnny Liebling is indeed among the living, but last weekend Monsieur
Cyphre and I, just by chance, were near the clinic in Poughkeepsie. We decided to check for ourselves, but we got misleading information,” Winesap informs Harry. “I didn't want to cause a scene, I hate any sort of fuss. I thought, perhaps you could subtly and in a quiet manner…,” Cyphre doesn't have to finish his sentence. “You want me to check it out,” Angel surmises as he accepts the case. He rises and shakes Cyphre’s hand. ”I have a feeling I've met you before,” Cyphre tells Harry, but Harry doesn’t think so. Admittedly, the first time I saw Angel Heart, I figured out the twist before its reveal, but not this early though it’s so obvious in retrospect that I don’t see how I missed it. With two more recent films with twists, Fight Club and The Sixth Sense, I knew their secrets before I saw them. In the case of David Fincher’s satiric masterpiece, I don’t think I would have figured out its twist on my own, but knowing that going in allowed me to watch more closely as I watched the film and admire it all the more. As for The Sixth Sense, I honestly don’t get why it wasn’t obvious to everyone who saw it that Bruce Willis’ character was dead all along. I also could watch that film more closely for the signs, but it didn't prevent dissatisfaction with the whole. Lots of movies stick pivotal scenes at the very start, be it another 1987 release such as No Way Out with Kevin Costner or Evil Under the Sun, the second Agatha Christie adaptation that had Peter Ustinov play Hercule Poirot, hoping that the scene slips the audience’s mind so when the film finally comes back to it, they are surprised. That’s the curse of my good memory. I remembered that odd scene of Costner in the room yelling at a two-way mirror, asking when they were going to come out, and guessed early that he indeed worked as a Russian mole. The entire time I watched the overrated Sixth Sense, I kept coming back to the first scene and wondering, “What happened to that deal with the patient that shot Willis in his bedroom?” Angel Heart lacks any scene like that, but the clues get placed before the moviegoer early and often and it’s a tribute to the skills of all involved that it engaged me to the point that I didn’t catch the hints until much later than I should have otherwise.So Harry Angel embarks on his investigation to find out what happened to Johnny Liebling nee Favorite after the war. He starts his search where Cyphre and Winesap got the "run-around" — The Sarah Dodds Harvest Memorial Clinic in Poughkeepsie. Pretending to be from the National Institute [sic] of Health, Harry inquires if they have Jonathan Liebling. The nurse (Kathleen Wilhoite) at the reception window tells Harry that he can't see a patient without an appointment, but Angel explains he just needs to know if he's "on the right track."
Checking the files, the nurse informs Harry that Liebling once was a patient there but was transferred to another hospital. Spinning the file around so that Harry can see, the transfer date, written in pen, reads 12/31/43 and an Albert Fowler signed the form. Harry points out to the nurse that whoever wrote the transfer note did it with a ballpoint pen — and ballpoints weren't around in the U.S. in 1943. He asks her if this Dr. Fowler still works at the clinic, but she says he only does part-time now. Harry finds Fowler's house, but the old doctor isn't there, so he breaks in and waits. Snooping in the meantime, he discovers a huge stash of morphine in Fowler's refrigerator. When Fowler (Michael Higgins) returns home, he threatens to call the police but Harry doubts he'll do that with his "opium den" and grills him about Johnny Favorite. The doctor lies and says he transferred him to a VA hospital in Albany, but Angel shoots that theory down. Fowler obviously needs a fix, but Harry won't let him have one until he gives him something he can
use, like where Johnny is now. "Some people came one night years ago. He got in the car with them and left," Fowler confesses. Harry inquires how a man who reportedly was in a vegetative state managed to get into a car. "At first, he was in a coma, but he quickly recovered," Fowler tells him, adding that Valentine still had amnesia. Harry pumps him for details about the friends. The doctor says the man was named Edward Kelley, but he didn't know about the woman because she stayed in the car. He believes they went Down South. They paid Fowler off to keep up the charade that Valentine remained in the clinic. Harry decides he could use some food and Fowler could clear his head so he helps the doctor to his bedroom, promising a fix when he returns, locking the doc in his room in the meantime. After a cheeseburger in a diner, Harry returns to Fowler's, grabs a bottle of morphine from the fridge and heads upstairs. He unlocks the bedroom door and finds Fowler dead, apparently a suicide, clutching a photograph and a Bible. Harry strikes a match off Fowler's shoe and wipes his prints off everything. When he wipes off the Bible, it opens and turns out to be hollowed out with bullets inside. Fowler will be just the first of many stiffs that cross Harry's path on what one could call the ultimate journey to find yourself.As Harry told Cyphre and Winesap, his cases usually involved divorces and insurance, nothing heavy — and nothing weighs heavier than a corpse such as Dr. Fowler's. Harry's prepared to tell Cyphre what he knows when he meets him at a tiny Brooklyn eatery and then wash his hands of this case. He informs Cyphre, who plays with a dish of hard-boiled eggs, about what he learned concerning this Edward Kelley taking Johnny Favorite away while paying Fowler all these years to make it appear as if he still resided in the Poughkeepsie clinic. It's that great scene I alluded to earlier involving De Niro's manipulation of the egg. YouTube has the clip but, alas, embedding isn't allowed so click here and watch, then return. Of course, Cyphre convinces Harry to stay on the case. Besides — what would happen with the rest of the
movie if he quit? I've never read Falling Angel but despite the changes that Parker acknowledges, I imagine the essential plot remains the same. Harry Angel hunts for Johnny Valentine and in a standard thriller, you could say that Valentine really serves as the MacGuffin, but Angel Heart pulls off something that not even Hitchcock tried. Sure, Norman assume his mother's identity in Psycho and Judy pretended to be Madeleine in Vertigo, but both are a far cry from Angel Heart where the MacGuffin actually is the main character, Harry Angel. He's hunting down himself and he's not aware of it. De Niro's Devil knows the whole time, but the people who aided Jonathan Liebling must pay a price and who better to deliver the bill than Johnny himself, unaware of what he's doing. Of course, selling your soul to the devil is an old story, but an innocent whose life becomes possessed by someone malevolent, even though Johnny Valentine appears just to be a rotten human being, foreshadows the inhabiting spirits, specifically BOB, of Twin Peaks who would commit heinous acts while in control of poor Leland Palmer, but Leland would have no memory until BOB exits and Leland's dying. When Harry gets together for a sexualromp with Epiphany Proudfoot (Lisa Bonet), the offspring of Johnny Valentine and a voodoo-practicing woman, he doesn't realize until it's after the fact — just like Leland — that he raped and murdered his own daughter. In a lot of ways, looking at Angel Heart now, it seems to portend some of the Lynchian trademarks that wouldn't really come to fruition until Twin Peaks and Wild at Heart. Blue Velvet debuted almost six months before Angel Heart, but for me it looks like a rough draft for the David Lynch template that he'd start perfecting in the '90s, especially with the large menagerice of eccentric characters.
Those characters start coming to the forefront as Harry makes his way to New Orleans. Even before that, we encounter the blatant "give me" preaching of Pastor John (Gerald L. John) who opens tells his parishioners that if they love God, he shouldn't be driving a Cadillac, he should be driving a Rolls-Royce. Harry's investigative trail takes him to old musician Spider Simpson (Charles Gordons), whose band Johnny used to play with, in a resting home (providing some of those doddering old folks that Lynch would revel in) who sends him to Coney Island chasing a gypsy fortune teller named Madame Zora. Despite Parker's insistence that he wanted to make a black and white film in color, Michael Seresin paints some bright and beautiful beach scenes when he meets with two more leads, Izzy (George Buck) and his wife (Judith Drake) who stands in the ocean in the belief it helps her varicose veins, even though Izzy says she hates the water. The Izzy conversation proves hysterical as he likes to give away nose shields from a box he found beneath the Boardwalk. Harry notes there isn't much sun. "Yeah, but it keeps the rain off too," Izzy tells him. He remembers Zora and his Baptist wife knew her well. Toward the end of their talk, Harry asks Izzy what he does in the summertime. "Bite the heads off of rats," he answers. "What do you do in the winter?" Harry inquires. "Same," Izzy replies, scratching his balls. His wife lets him know that Madame Zora is the same person as a Louisiana heiress named Margaret Krusemark. "She wasn't a gypsy, she was a debutante," the wife informs Angel. The wonderful but woefully underused Charlotte Rampling plays Margaret.
The cast of interesting characters stretches further than those. There's Stocker Fontelieu as Ethan Krusemark, Margaret's wealthy and connected daddy who ends up explaining the whole situation to Harry. We even get an early role by Pruitt Taylor Vince as one of the
detectives aggravating Harry about the bodies that keep popping up connected to him. I made a reference earlier to Lisa Bonet's role. Harry first meets Epiphany with her infant son as she visits the grave of her mother, Evangeline Proudfoot, Johnny's secret lover. "Your mom left you with a very pretty name, Epiphany," Harry tells her. "And not much else," she replies. It seems so funny now how controversial it was at the time that she made this movie and ended up getting her booted off The Cosby Show because of her heavy duty sex scene with Mickey Rourke, soiling Denise Huxtable's
innocent image. Apparently, the elaborate voodoo dance number where she appears to sacrifice a chicken and bathe her breasts in its blood was OK. (Interestingly enough, the same person staged the elaborate voodoo dance ritual as did the dance numbers in Fame — the late Louis Falco.) I wonder what would have happened if the story of Bill Cosby paying for the child of his former mistress had been revealed while the show had been on the air. Would he have kicked himself off the show? On the DVD, Parker admits that coming from England, he knew nothing of The Cosby Show or who Bonet was when he cast her. He said they all took great care to protect Bonet, then 19, when time came to film the explicit scene, but she exhibited fewer nerves than anyone else. Bonet, like most of the cast, got some good dialogue. Parker didn't write many of his films (and other than Bugsy Malone, the ones he did tended to be his lesser ones such as Come See the Paradise, The Road to Welville and Evita), but if he's telling the truth and he didn't take that much dialogue from the novel, he came up with a lot of keepers here. Before Harry and Epiphany couple, he asks her what her mother said about Valentine. "She once said that Johnny Valentine was as close to true evil as she ever wanted to be," Epiphany answers, adding that Evangeline called Johnny the best lover she ever had to which Harry shrugs as if to say, "That figures." Epiphany recognizes his reaction and tells him, "It's always the badass that makes a girl's heart beat faster."
As I mentioned early on, Parker said that rewatching the film for him was like seeing it for the first time. Parts of it did play like that for me with the exception of one character and the person who played him, who wasn't even an actor by trade. I forget who spoke the words but I remember a critic once saying that the mark of a memorable character was when the character's name stayed with you long after you'd finished watching the movie. It's 25 years, give or take, since I don't recall how soon I saw Angel Heart after its opening, and Toots Sweet remains vivid in my mind. It's a small role, a musician who played with Johnny Valentine and takes part in the voodoo rituals, portrayed by a real blues legend, Brownie McGhee. In real life, McGhee was known both for his solo work and his longtime musical partnership with blind harmonica player Sonny Terry. Harry offers to buy Toots a drink when he takes a break from his set,
but Toots gets his drinks comped and takes a very special order. "Two Sisters cocktails. I don't know what's in it but gives a bigger kick than six stingers," Toots tells him. When Harry reminds him of Spider Simpson, Toots recalls, "I remember Spider. He used to play his drums like jack rabbits fuckin'." He then excuses himself for the rest room before has to play again. "A piss and a spit and back to work," the musician says, but Harry follows him and pushes for information and Toots finds the warning of a chicken foot in the toilet. He'll eventually become one of the string of bodies, dying in a particularly graphic way, but in his brief time in the movie, McGhee's Toots Sweet has stayed with me for a long
time. There's another supporting player that I've neglected to honor with the plaudits he deserves for his essential role in Angel Heart. His work shows up in every scene of the movie despite the fact that his corporeal form doesn't appear. I'm referring to Gerry Hambling, whose superb film editing controls every aspect of Angel Heart, especially once Harry's memories mixed with Johnny's begin to come back to him with recurring images of fans that stop and switch directions, the shadows of those fans, soldiers in 1943 Times Square, a building with a single lit window, gazing down upon a long spiral staircase with various figures and steel elevators descending to somewhere you probably don't wish to go. Hambling and Parker's collaboration began with two short films in 1974 and has continued through 14 feature films, earning Hambling Oscar nominations for Parker's Midnight Express, Fame, Mississippi Burning, The Commitments and Evita. Hambling earned another nominated for editing Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the Father and his additional credits include Absolute Beginners and the infamous Bill Cosby bomb Leonard Part 6.
When boiled down, it's merely four great scenes by De Niro and a helluva performance by Rourke that gives Angel Heart its power a quarter-century after its release. The actors' third scene together, in the pews of a church, may be my favorite. Look for yourself. De Niro's Cyphre gets great lines (as usual) such as "The future isn't what it used to be, Mr. Angel" and "They say there's just enough religion in the world to make men hate one another but not enough to make them love." Cyphre via De Niro also gets to do a great wink and smile of the "Tsk, tsk" sort when Harry curses, reminding
him they're in a church to which Angel indicates he doesn't care. "Are you an atheist?" Cyphre asks him. "Yeah, I'm from Brooklyn," Harry replies. What prompted his profanity was Cyphre's continued politician-like way to skirt straight answers to direct questions. "I'm a little fed up with fuckin' 'vaguely.' 'Vaguely' is starting to put a noose around my neck and it's starting to choke," Harry barks at him. Rourke performs superbly as a hardened private eye who slowly unravels as he realizes that everything he thought he knew wasn't true and he'd just traveled across the country obliviously chasing his own tail. Once Harry learns the truth about himself and Cyphre, he returns to his New Orleans hotel room, shocking the detectives that he'd come back to the scene of Epiphany's murder. The lead detective tells him that he's going to burn and he calmly responds, "I know — in hell." Alan Parker has a funny line in his interview on the DVD when he insists that he considers the story in Angel Heart doesn't get enough credit for its realism. "I think people sell their souls to the devil every day of the week. In Hollywood, even more regularly," Parker says.Perhaps what turns out to be most shocking about Angel Heart concerns the course of Mickey Rourke's career. That it took until The Wrestler for Rourke to be recognized with an Oscar nomination. Snubbed in 1987 for both Angel Heart and Barfly when the weak actor field consisted of two essentially supporting roles (Michael Douglas in Wall Street and William Hurt in Broadcast News); a performance in an Italian film few people have seen even now, 25 years later (Marcello Mastroianni in Dark Eyes); an Oscar favorite in a deadly dull prestige picture (Nicholson in Ironweed); and a manic comic doing his shtick in the form of a war biopic (Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam). Rourke also was overlooked in previous years for The Pope of Greenwich Village and, especially, Diner. On the other hand, they did get around to nominating Rourke sooner than they did Gary Oldman.
As for Angel Heart, the movie certainly has detractors — as most films that hinge on major twists do. In my mind, what raises it above other films with surprising turns — or for that matter makes any "twist" film that works such as The Crying Game or Fight Club — stems from the fact that Angel Heart provides solid filmmaking prior to the twist. I don't know if a great Angel Heart could have been made without that story turn, but the film Alan Parker made prior to the revelation was a damn good one and the secret kicked it to an even higher level of success.
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Labels: 80s, A. Parker, Books, Costner, De Niro, De Palma, Fiction, Fincher, Hitchcock, Law and Order, Lynch, Mickey Rourke, Movie Tributes, Nicholson, Oldman, Rampling, Scorsese, Twin Peaks, Updike, Willis
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Monday, March 05, 2012
Just for a Smile
By VenetianBlond
Director Barry Levinson, just starting out as a filmmaker, turned his camera on a group of guys in their 20s who hang out in a diner. What he captured was part coming-of-age story, part Altmanesque conversation flood, and part elegy for times gone by. With an Oscar-nominated screenplay, he directed terrific performances from his cast, all of whom later became household names. Given all the high concept or high production (or both) fare that’s usually greenlit these days, it’s refreshing to see a good old-fashioned character study and wonder whatever happened to those guys in the diner.
It’s the holiday season of 1959, and during a party, Modell (Paul Reiser) pulls Boogie (Mickey Rourke) away to help with a situation. Fenwick (Kevin Bacon) is smashing out the basement windows and won’t quit. “It’s just for a smile,” he drunkenly says. But Boogie has the heft to convince him to stop and come back upstairs. Eventually they meander to their favorite hangout, the diner, joined by Shrevie (Daniel Stern) and Eddie (Steve Guttenberg). There, they can shoot the breeze, razz each other, brag and even declare their unending annoyance with each other.
They’re joined the next morning by Billy (Tim Daly), who‘s in town for Eddie’s wedding. There’s some question whether or not it actually will occur, because the girl in question must pass a football quiz or the nuptials are off. Billy’s got his own problems: After a one night stand with a good friend, she’s pregnant but won’t marry him. Boogie’s in debt to gangsters, Fenwick is perpetually drunk and Shrevie has no idea how to relate to his wife Beth (Ellen Barkin). It’s a coming-of-age story in that these guys must grow up and figure out how to deal with things, but they’re not 14 anymore.
Mickey Rourke, just off of Body Heat and on his way to Rumble Fish and The Pope of Greenwich Village, pulls a lot of the focus. Boogie is the alpha male without a doubt, even though he has a soft, high voice and works as a stylist in a beauty salon. His plan to make the money to pay off the debt is to gamble more — with his friends about what sexual exploits he can manage. They are more than happy to go along. Boogie has a strong sense of who he is, but he has no idea what to do with that knowledge. When he has an opportunity to rekindle things with Beth, whom he dated before she married Shrevie, he can’t go through with it. He tells her that she and Shrevie need to work out their “thing,” which he knows is right, but he doesn’t know how to find that “thing” for himself. Mickey Rourke already shows all the charm and danger in lethal combination that would become his stock in trade.
Levinson allowed a certain amount of improvisation on the set, and that allowed for some great work, particularly from Steve Guttenberg and Paul Reiser. Modell is constantly cadging from Eddie, whether it’s a ride home or the rest of his sandwich, and it makes Eddie immediately see red. “Just say the words!” he yells, trying to get Modell to admit he’s a moocher, but he won’t It’s a hilarious recognition of the fact that our best friends can be the ones who get on our last nerve.
Kevin Bacon, looking younger than all the rest, is a surprise as the alcoholic Fenwick, who’s the polar opposite of his Chip Diller in National Lampoon's Animal House. Levinson gives him a terrific scene in which he’s watching the college quiz show on TV and he knows all the answers. He’s got potential, but it’s lost in a sterile upbringing and a loss of focus. He decides to spend Christmas in his boxers in the Baby Jesus’ manger in front of the Catholic Church, and when his friends come to get him, he punches out all the Wise Men.
Diner doesn’t have a lot of narrative drive, because the characters don’t either. They have a certain amount of faith that things eventually will work out in the end, even if they don’t know how to help them along. What they do know is that they’ve had their best friends to either support them or distract them from their troubles — even if they eventually get married and their wives “will make you get all new friends.”
As in American Graffiti, Diner looked back at the 1950s as the end of an era and a turning point for the young people in America. But where American Graffiti had a sense of urgency, Diner takes a more contemplative bent. Shrevie can’t understand why his records get misplaced, and Beth can’t understand what the big deal is. In a tour de force monologue, Shrevie explains why Charlie Parker is not filed with the rock ‘n’ roll. It sounds silly, but Beth is devastated, and both characters see that they are talking past each other, but they can’t fix it. That’s what we can relate to, whether it’s 1959, or 1982, or now.
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Labels: 80s, Altman, B. Levinson, Barkin, Kevin Bacon, Mickey Rourke, Movie Tributes
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Sunday, August 28, 2011
The Mystery of the Missing Movie (or Body Heat at 30)
By Damian Arlyn
There’s a kind of freedom that comes in knowing you're about to die. A lack of fear. Once you’ve finally accepted that your number is up, a strange sort of detachment comes over you. I’ve always been a pretty apathetic fellow, but I’d never experienced anything like what I felt standing in that alleyway, staring down the barrel of a .38, two fresh corpses sprawled on the grimy ground beside me, knowing full well that my next breath would be my last. I found that I didn’t give a damn about anyone or anything anymore. Not only that, but I’d lost my ability to B.S. There's no deceit in death. A man who lies to save his own skin does so because he still thinks there’s a chance he’ll live. A man who resigns himself to his fate cannot lie. So, in those last few moments of my life, as I reflected back on the twisted course of events that led me there, I knew it was the absolute truth.
It all started two days ago. It was a hot August evening in the city. I sat in my chair watching the ceiling fan spin, which did nothing to cool things off. It just blew the hot air around. The Venetian blinds in my window cast long shadows across my desk where a nearly empty bottle of bourbon sat comfortably next to an empty shot-glass. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost closing time. Suddenly the door to my office opened and a tall, thin brunette dressed to the nines strolled in and closed the door behind her. “Are you Joe Cannon?” she asked.
“If I’m not, then one of us in the wrong office,” I said indicating the name on the door window that clearly read "JOSEPH CANNON: PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR." She sat down in the chair in front of my desk and crossed her legs giving me a swell view of them. "So, what can I do for you, Miss…?"
“My name isn't important. What matters is that I need your help. I would like to hire you to find…" she hesitated, took a deep breath and said, “…a movie.”
“Come again?”
“I need you to help me find a movie.” Now, in all the years I’d been a snoop, I never had a request like this. I’ve educated various women in the extracurricular activities of their husbands. I’ve helped locate missing persons. I’d even tracked down and fingered the occasional blackmailer, thief or murderer, but finding a movie? That was a new one.
“Not my line of work, doll,” I uttered. “Why don’t you try Blockbuster? There’s one down the street.”
“It closed down,” she said. I really need to get out more, I thought. “Besides, I know precisely what movie it is I’m looking for. All I need is a name. I caught it late one night on cable many years ago. I thought it was an excellent example of that genre known as film noir. It involved a man who had fallen in love with a dangerous blonde. Together they plotted to kill her husband but after the deed is done, he starts to suspect that she’s just using him for her own selfish purposes and —”
“I know that film,” I interjected. “It’s Double Indemnity.”
She shook her head. “No, that’s not it. I’m familiar with that film too and although it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that it was used as a source of inspiration given the many similarities, the film I’m looking for has some distinct differences. First of all, Double Indemnity was made in the '40s and is in black and white. My film
was made in the '80s and is in color. The protagonist of Double Indemnity is an insurance salesman while the protagonist of my film is a lawyer. That one is set in Los Angeles while my film takes place in Florida in the middle of an intense heat wave. In fact, because of that I believe the title has something to do with ‘heat’ or ‘hot’… also because it’s a very sexy film. There are several love scenes that are quite erotic, though it never crosses the line into becoming pornographic. There is some nudity, but far more is implied than displayed. Whoever made it knows that the most powerful tool in making something appear sexy is the audience’s imagination.” She suddenly stopped talking, a little embarrassed that she’d just gone on for two minutes about this mysterious film. “Please, I have to find it. It means a great deal to me. I was told that if anyone could help me, you could.”
I was about to tell her that I had better things to do than help some needy broad (who wouldn't even give me her name) track down some random flick she’d had a late-night fling with years earlier, but there was something about her eyes that grabbed me: a look of desperation in them that I couldn’t shake. That’s when I made a mistake that you never make in my line of work. For the first time in a long time, I felt sorry for a client. I told her I’d help her out. Her face lit up. As I discussed my pay, she jotted down some more information on a scrap of paper (along with a number where I could reach her) which she handed to me. She rose and sauntered to the door. “Thank you, Mr. Cannon,” she said looking over her shoulder with a smile.
"Call me Joe," I said. "What do I call you?"
"I'm known to my friends as 'The Siren.'"
So, a Greek mythological creature hired me to find a movie. I guess I'd had weirder cases. I decided to start with my old Army buddy Matt Zoller Seitz. Matt was such a film freak that he had forgotten more about movies than I would ever know. The next day I called his workplace. He wasn’t there, but his office told me where I could find him. I caught up with Matt at a local park playing with his kids. He was pushing one of them in a swing when he saw me coming toward him and smiled. “Joe,” he said holding out his hand as I approached him. “It’s been a while. What’s new? You still in the gumshoe business?"
I shook his hand. “Still. In fact, I’m on a case right now. I’m looking for a movie.”
“Well, I’m your man. What do you got?”
“It’s film noir. Story involves some sap who gets mixed up with the wrong dame. Together they kill her husband and then things start to go bad for him.”
“Sounds like Double Indemnity. Released in 1944. Directed by Billy Wilder.”
“Nah, this one’s more recent,” I said pulling out my notepad and looking at the details The Siren gave me. I told Matt that this film was made in the '80s. I mentioned it featured William Hurt as the sap, Kathleen
Turner (in her first movie role) as the voluptuous vixen he falls for, the late great Richard Crenna played her husband, J.A. Preston was the investigating cop, Ted Danson (in what apparently was one of his best performances) portrayed a sleazy rival lawyer who is always dancing wherever he goes and a very young Mickey Rourke was an explosives expert. I went on about what the lady had told me regarding the film’s visual style: how the camera could glide with confidence and grace but also know precisely when to let it rest in a static shot. As I read more and more details off, I noticed Matt’s smile slowly fade away. It was replaced by a look of concern. He was clearly getting uncomfortable. “I…uh, I don’t know that one. Sorry. It just doesn’t ring a bell.”
“You not knowin’ a flick? That doesn’t sound like you, Matt.”
“Well, I guess you can’t know ‘em all, huh?” he said wiping the sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta take the kids home.”
“What’s wrong, Matt?”
“Nothing. Just…let this one go, Joe. Let it go.”
Matt’s warning echoed in my head as I drove all over town talking to other friends of mine who happened to know a lot about movies. Everywhere I went I got the same answer. They didn’t know. Of course, I knew they were lying. They did know and they weren’t talking. They were scared. Someone had put the fear of God into them, but who? And why? As the evening rolled in, I was no closer to finding this flick than I was to finding Nick Jonas’ talent. I decided to try the local library. Not only did they have a very extensive collection of
movies to check out, but I happened to know a girl who worked there. Her name was Sheila O’Malley. She was a blonde, bookish type with whom I’d had a thing going a while ago, but she wanted more so I got out while the getting was good. Since then she’d had a string of casual boyfriends, but I still think she was waiting for me to come to my senses again and I was able to use that sometimes to my advantage. I caught up with her as she was getting ready to lock up. “Well, look at what the cat dragged in.” she said smiling wryly. “What brings you here, Joe?” I told her everything I knew about the movie and she agreed to help me out, for old time’s sake. She typed the information into her computer database. “Ah, yes. Here we go. The film you’re looking for is called Body Heat. It was released on August 28, 1981 and was written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan. He’s the guy who wrote the screenplays to Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back. He later went on to direct The Big Chill, Silverado and Mumford, but Body Heat was his first film.”
“Yeah, fascinating," I said suppressing a yawn. "Do you have it?”
“As a matter of fact, we do.” She led me to the area where they kept their movies. As she looked through the numerous rows of plastic cases for it, I decided to ask her if she had ever seen the film herself and if so what she thought of it. “Oh, sure. I saw it a long time ago. I quite liked it. I remember thinking that the music in particular was very good. John Barry, the fella responsible for such great scores as Midnight Cowboy, Somewhere in Time and many of the James Bond films, wrote a very lush, sensual jazz score. It captured the steamy essence of the story quite effectively I thought. In fact, it’s one of his best scores.” She stopped and looked off nostalgically. "I can still hear that sultry sax solo playing over those opening credits." I cleared my throat, she snapped out of it, pulled out a case with an image of a mustached guy and a hot blonde dressed in white on the cover. “Here we go.” She opened it and her brow suddenly furled. “Well, that’s strange. It’s not in here.”
“What?” I asked.
“It should be here, but it’s not. There’s no movie in the case. Someone stole it.”
This just gets more and more bizarre, I thought. “Something’s going on here, Sheila. I don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t feel right. Can you tell me who the last person was to check it out?”
“Sure.” She led me back to her computer where she looked up the film’s rental history. “Someone named Ross Ruediger.” I thanked her and headed for the door. “What are you getting’ yourself into here, Joe?” she called out to me. I pretended not to hear.
So, I had a title and I had a name. I decided to pay a visit to this Ruediger fellow and see what he knew. I found his address in the phone book and the following morning showed up at his home. It was a nice suburban house with a perfectly mowed lawn and a white picket fence. As I approached the front door, I
noticed that it was slightly open. I drew my piece and cautiously entered. The living room had been ransacked. Someone was looking for something. Chairs were overturned, couch pillows were cut to bits and dozens of opened movie cases were spread out all over the floor. It was quite the collection: L.A. Confidential, Brick, Devil in a Blue Dress, The Long Goodbye and many more. What was most striking about this residence, however, was the dead body lying face-up in the middle of the floor. He looked like he had been shot in the chest. I leaned over, pulled out his wallet and checked his I.D. It was Ross. There was very little else in the wallet aside from a couple bucks, a library card and a scrap of paper with some random letters and numbers that looked like they'd been scrawled hurriedly on it: "D.B. 5552314 82881." I pocketed the cash and the paper, rose to my feet and made my way to the kitchen. Unlike the living room it was immaculate. The floor had been swept, the counters were clean and there were healthy potted plants everywhere throughout it. Suddenly something hit me over the head. I fell forward and everything went black.
When I woke up, my ears were ringing like the national anthem and my head felt like it had gone 12 rounds with Tyson. How long had I been out? I opened my eyes and found myself staring up into the faces of two of my least favorite people in the world: Lt. Dennis Cozzalio and Sgt. Jim Emerson of the police department.
“Hey, sleeping beauty. Welcome back to the land of the living,” Cozzalio said. Together, the two of them picked me up and threw me into a chair next to a small table in the middle of the kitchen. They told me that when they received a call from some neighbor who heard a gunshot in this house, they never expected to find me here. They then proceeded to ask me a series of questions in rapid succession, each one taking a turn. It was like watching a tennis match — and I was the ball. I told them everything I knew but decided it was wise to leave out a few little things, such as the truth. Cozzalio wasn’t buying my yarn.
“That’s some story,” he said rolling his eyes. “If I ever enter a fiction-writing contest I’ll have to remember it.”
“Now, why would I lie?”
“To protect your client maybe. Tall, thin brunette. Goes by the nickname 'The Siren?'” I froze. How did he know about her? Cozzalio pulled out my notepad. "It was found on the floor next to you. What's this Siren want with you? And what does it have to do with all these details about some neo-noir movie?"
"You know I can't tell you about what goes on between me and a client, Lieutenant."
"Well, you're not going to be doing her any good by keeping quiet. We just got a call that her body was found in her apartment across town. Looks like she was plugged with a .38.”
“Same weapon it seems was used on Mr. Ruediger here,” Emerson added.
"So, you see, Cannon," Cozzalio continued. "This is a double homicide. Somehow you’re connected to both of them and you damn sure know more than you’re tellin’ me. So, give…or am I gonna have to haul you in on suspicion of murder.”
He was bluffing. “Oh, come on, Lieutenant. You think I came in here, popped this guy and then decided to take a nap until you boys showed up?”
“Then give us something, Cannon.” Emerson barked. “What can you tell us about this Ross Ruediger?”
“He liked neo-noir?” I joked. Cozzalio wasn't amused. Emerson looked confused.
“What’s neo-noir?” he asked.
Cozzalio turned to him. “Neo-noir is a term used to describe a recent sub-genre of movies that attempt to replicate many of the same elements seen in classic examples of film noir from the '30s, '40s and the '50s. Some have said that noir was a genre distinctive to a particular historical era of cinema. Others have said that the genre is more defined by its content (style, themes, etc). Neo-noir tries to imitate the form, if not perhaps the function, of traditional noir and sometimes it’s highly successful, as it was in Chinatown. Other times, such as The Black Dahlia…well, not so much.”
“Can I go now?” I asked. Cozzalio glared at me. He knew he had nothing he could hold me on.
“Don’t leave town,” he snarled.
So, The Siren was dead. Probably shot by the same gun that killed Ruediger. What was going on? What was so important about this movie? I walked the streets trying to figure it all out, but my head hurt. I stopped at a drugstore a block from my office and bought an ice pack. My head was still throbbing as I trudged up to the stairs to my office. Before I could get my key in the lock, the door flew open and a hand pulled me in and threw me to the floor. “Good evening, Mr. Cannon,” a polite but sinister voice said. I looked up and saw a small, extremely well-groomed man in a suit that cost more than a year’s worth of my rent sitting in my chair with his feet up on my desk. I wasn’t sure how, but there was something familiar about him. “I hope you don’t mind that we let ourselves in.”
“Not at all,” I muttered as I slowly stood up. “Make yourself at home.”
“Thank you. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is David Bordwell and this is my associate Odie.” I turned around and got a good look at the goon who pulled me in. He was easily twice my size with hands as big as cocoanuts. He grunted a greeting. The little guy in the fancy suit pulled a tiny clipper out of his pocket and started to trim his nails as he spoke to me. “Word is that you’re looking for a movie that goes by the name of Body Heat? Is that true?”
“What’s it to you?” The mountain slapped me upside the back of the head and my knees became acquainted with the floorboards once again.
“Let’s just say that I am also interested in obtaining that particular motion picture. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but it is very hard to find these days. All existing copies seem to have vanished. If one is indeed located, it could be very valuable. I was wondering if I could retain your services in finding it for me?”
“Thanks, but I’m not interested.” Again, his henchman smacked me to the floor. That’s it, I thought. I’m tired of being knocked around on this case. As I slowly rose to my feet I shot him a dirty look. “Touch me again and you’ll regret it,” I threatened.
“Easy, Odie.” the suit remarked. “I don’t think you realize how important a person I am. I could reward you very handsomely for it.”
“I don’t know who you are and I don’t care.” I said. Odie took another swing at me, but this time I ducked and brought my knee up into his groin. He went down like the walls of Jericho. “I warned you.” I gloated as he rolled around on the floor whimpering. The suit rose from my chair and walked around the desk toward me.
“It’s so hard to find good help these days.” He reached into his jacket, pulled out a small pad and a pencil and started writing something on it. “If you are ever interested in becoming a rich man, ring this number here. It's my private line.” He ripped the slip of paper from the pad and held it out to me. Reluctantly I took it. With a bow, he was gone, taking his limping sidekick with him.
I sat down at the desk and removed my hat. Who was this guy and why did he seem so familiar to me? I glanced down at the paper and was about to crumple it up when I noticed something. The phone number he wrote was "555-2314." I pulled out the paper I got off Ruediger's body. "5552314." It was the same number. That's when I noticed the letters. "D.B." David Bordwell! Ruediger knew Bordwell! Not only that, he had his private number. The only thing that I had left to decipher on the sheet was the remaining number: "82881." That's when it hit me. I grabbed my phone and called the library hoping Sheila would still be there. She was. I asked her when she had said the release date was for Body Heat. "August 28, 1981," she immediately responded. 82881. It was a date! 8-28-81! Thirty years ago today! In a flash, it all suddenly made sense. I remembered where I'd seen Bordwell before and I knew where to find the flick.
"Sheila, I need you to do something for me," I said. "I need you to call the police department. Ask for a Lieutenant Cozzalio or Sergeant Emerson. Tell them to meet me in 30 minutes at this address."
"What's going on, Joe?" Sheila asked.
"Just do it, Sheila," I asserted. "I know who murdered Ruediger and The Siren. I also know where to find the missing movie." I gave her the address to tell the police and she agreed to call them right away. I hung up and immediately dialed Bordwell's private number to set up a meeting. First, however, I had to make a quick stop somewhere else.
A half-hour later I was standing in the middle of an alley between Cain Street and Chandler Boulevard. My hat's brim dipped low, my trench coat's collar rose high. It wasn't that I was cold. This was just the kind of neighborhood in which you didn't want to draw attention to yourself; the kind of place where the sound of gunshots were so common that neighbors weren't reporting them to the police. I looked around nervously as I waited. Suddenly, I heard a voice behind me.
"Well, that didn't take long, Mister Cannon," I turned around and standing before me was the little guy and the big guy. "Is that it there?" he said pointing to the disc I held in my hand. I nodded. "Where did you find it?"
"At Ruediger's house. When you tossed the place you forgot to look in the potted plants in his kitchen…one in particular. When a man takes great care to mow his lawn and see that his plants are watered and healthy, it should stand out to you when one plant is dying. It means he's got something else hidden in there." Bordwell looked impressed as he held out his hand. "Before I hand it over, I was wondering if you could tell me what would someone with unlimited access to the Warner Bros. movie archives want with a copy of Body Heat?" He smiled and asked me when I realized who he was. "I knew your face when we spoke in my office earlier, but I just couldn't place it. Then I remembered reading an article in Variety a few months ago about how you had taken over the DVD/Blu-Ray division at Warner Bros. studios. I just couldn't figure out why someone in your position would so badly want to get their hand on a copy of this or any other Warner Bros. title."
"Have you ever seen it, Mister Cannon?" he asked. I shook my head. "Well, it's a fine film. A damn fine film. It was well-received by critics back when it was released and the years have been very kind to it. It's one of the treasures of our library and were it to be re-released on DVD and Blu-ray in a special 30th anniversary collector's edition it could make us a fortune…but only if people didn't already own it. The economy has hit everyone hard, Mister Cannon. Consumers don't double-dip anymore. They're tired of having to repeatedly purchase their favorite films in new formats. Just as Ridley Scott's FINAL CUT of Blade Runner promised closure to so many cinephiles, so would this definitive release of Body Heat be the last chapter in the life of a significant piece of cinematic history."
"That's why it's so hard to find nowadays," I continued. "You've been snatching up every available copy out there so that demand would be high for your release of Body Heat with all its 'bells and whistles.' You also bribed or intimidated reputable cinephiles, such as my buddy Matt Zoller Seitz, so they'd keep their mouths shut. Tell me, why did you kill Ross Ruediger? Was he refusing to give up his copy of it? Did he love neo-noir movies so much that he couldn't bear to part with it? Or was he just threatening to spill the beans on the whole operation? And what about The Siren? She was just a woman in love. What did she ever do to deserve what she got?"
"You know, I'm bored with this conversation," he said casually pulling out a .22 and pointing it right at me. "Now, if you don't mind, Mister Cannon, kindly hand over the disc." I tossed it to him. "Thank you."
"Are you going to kill me too? Just as you killed Ross Ruediger and The Siren?"
Bordwell chuckled. "This may be hard for you to believe, Mister Cannon, but I've never heard of this…'Siren.' I didn't kill Mister Ruediger either. In fact, he and I had an understanding. He was very keen on selling me his copy of Body Heat. That's why I gave him my private number. He was supposed to get in touch with me by today, but he never called. However, it's no matter now. Goodbye, Mister Cannon." Bordwell bowed and turned to leave. Odie grunted his usual response and turned with him. Was he telling the truth? Did I have it all wrong? If he didn't kill them, then who did? At that moment two gunshots rang out and both Bordwell and his henchman fell to the ground. The shots came from behind me. I whipped around and standing there holding a smoking .38 was the last person I ever expected to see.
"Sheila?"
"That's right, Joe," she said smiling at me.
"What the…? I don't get — How? Why?"
"It's a long story, Joe, but it goes back several years…to the day that you dumped me. I was heartbroken, devastated. I invited my best friend over to comfort me. I believe you two have met. She called herself 'The Siren.' Anyway, we ended up watching a movie on late night television together. It was Body Heat. I didn't quite know what to think of it that first time. I enjoyed it but was not blown away. Over the years, as I went
through relationship after relationship with other men, I couldn't get certain images and lines of dialogue from that film out of my mind. Kathleen Turner in that gorgeous white outfit standing alone on the pier staring off at the ocean, William Hurt admiring his new fedora in the reflection of the car window, the haunting sound of those beautiful wind chimes…All these moments stuck with me. That's when I decided, a few months ago, I needed to watch it again. By this time I had the job at the library and checked out our copy of it. It was then that the film's greatness became apparent to me. I fell in love with it. Its style, its elegance, its romanticism. It is an impeccably-made motion picture. I realized that I didn't need a man as long as I had Body Heat. But Bordwell and his greedy friends at Warner Bros. were making sure that nobody could get their hands on it. I knew it was only a matter of time before they tried to take the library's copy away too. I had to make sure that didn't happen. So, I chose a sap whom I could seduce into checking it out permanently."
"Ross Ruediger," I said.
"It was a cinch picking him. I saw him in the library all the time. He loved neo-noir and when I came on strong to him one day, he folded like a pup tent. Men are so easy to manipulate. In a few weeks, he would do anything for me…even hold on to my movie for me, hiding it so that nobody could find it."
"And you were able to make sure that it was constantly checked out, so that nobody could ever take your precious Body Heat away from you. Clever." Sheila wore a somewhat triumphant expression. "So, why'd you kill him?"
"Because he was weak. The day after you came by the library, I went over to his house bright and early hoping to get him to give me the movie before you showed up and strong-armed him into handing it over to you. The man loved good movies, but he had no backbone. Bordwell had already gotten to him, as Ross tearfully confessed to me that morning, and talked him into selling it back to the studio. He could no longer be trusted. He had to go."
"So you shot him and then ransacked the place looking for the movie. Is that when I showed up and you ambushed me?"
"You guessed it. I have to admit that I was a little surprised to see you turn up at the library looking for it, Joe. I couldn't figure out why you were suddenly interested in the film, so while you were out cold I went through your pockets, found your notepad and saw the name and phone number of your new client: my old friend, The Siren. I guess the same thing had happened to her. She also had fallen in love with that film that we were both introduced to that night. She must also have became obsessed with having it. Well, I couldn't let her. This movie was mine and mine alone. Nobody was going to take it away from me. Ever." She raised the gun. "I guess I owe you some thanks, Joe. Not only did you locate the movie for me, but if you hadn't broken up with me all those years ago, I never would've even found out about it. Now, get the disc."
"You'll never get away with this, Sheila. The police will be here any —" I stopped when I realized that I had asked her to call the police. She smiled at me. I sighed, walked over to the Bordwell's small body which lay on the ground behind me, took the disc out of his hand and turned back to face Sheila. "Throw it to me."
"Don't do this, Sheila," I pleaded with her. "No movie is worth this."
"You don't know that. You haven't seen it."
"And I guess I never will." I crunched the disc in my hand before dropping it to the ground and stepping on it. Sheila let out a noise like nothing I'd ever heard. It was more than a scream. It was the sound of a person's soul being crushed. She looked at me with tears streaming down her face and a look of intense fury in her eyes.
"You bastard!" she said cocking the gun.
This is it, I thought. This is how you die. I closed my eyes and waited for the gunshot that I knew was going to end my life. There was a loud boom. I actually heard the sound of my own death. So, where did she hit me? I couldn't tell. I felt nothing. Did she miss? I opened my eyes just in time to see Sheila fall forward. At that moment, Sgt. Emerson emerged from around the corner holding his gun. He asked me if I was OK. I told him I was fine. Just in shock. "Cozzalio's been having me follow you around ever since you left Ruediger's place this morning. Good thing too."
"Where were you when she killed the other two?" I asked.
"I was…um, indisposed at the moment," he said looking a little embarrassed. "I ran over as soon as I heard the gunshots and that's when I saw her pointing that .38 at you. Don't worry. I heard her whole confession. You're off the hook, Cannon." Within 10 minutes, there were a dozen cops at the scene, the alley was quartered off and Lt. Cozzalio was taking my statement. This time, I decided to tell him everything, leaving nothing out.
"Well, it's only a shame you had to destroy the movie too, Joe. We could've used that."
"I didn't destroy it." I said pulling another disc out of my pocket. "While I was picking up Body Heat at Ruediger's place I grabbed another disc just in case. I don't even know which one it was. Sin City I think." I handed it to him.
"All this trouble over a movie," he said holding it up and looking at it. "I hope it was all worth it." I asked him what would happen to it. "Oh, it's evidence now," he answered. "It'll get put away with all the other junk for a long, long time. Why? Were you interested in watching it?"
"No, thanks," I replied lighting a cigarette. "Too many people have died for that thing." Cozzalio was still examining it as I turned to exit the alley. I stopped, however, and glanced back over my shoulder one last time before walking off into the night. "But I hear it's damn good."
A special word of thanks to all of my film-blogging friends who allowed me to use their names in this crazy, but amusing, little endeavor of mine:
Matt Zoller Seitz
The Self-Styled Siren
David Bordwell
Jim Emerson
Ross Ruediger
Odie Henderson
Sheila O'Malley
Dennis Cozzalio
Black-and-white image courtesy of Jim Ferreira Photography.
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Labels: 80s, K. Turner, L. Kasdan, Mickey Rourke, Movie Tributes, R. Scott, Wilder, William Hurt
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